Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Hurricane Watch: Invest 99L Becomes Tropical Depression 5

Why, wary reader might ask, did we glom onto this one and not the four previous?
If you lose enough money to these things you get a feel for what might end up developing and what might not.
From Wunderblog:

Tropical Storm Watches are flying for much of the Lesser Antilles, as the islands await the arrival of Tropical Depression Five, which formed at 5 pm EDT today. The new depression is still fairly ragged looking, as seen on visible satellite loops.
Heavy thunderstorm activity is only on the south side of the center,
due to higher wind shear on the northern side of the storm. Wind shear
over TD 5 is at the moderate level, 10 - 15 knots. TD 5 has one
respectable low-level spiral band on its south side, but additional
spiral bands are beginning to appear, and the areal coverage of the
storm's heavy thunderstorms has increased markedly in the late afternoon
hours...MORE